Flowers in Her Footsteps
by redonthefly
Summary: Life in the kingdom is completely idyllic. Unpredictable, but you know. Nice. (For counterpunches on Tumblr. Mostly ridiculous.)


The floating candles should have been the first clue really, but it happened on Halloween night and they were both so bleary-eyed and sleepy that the sight of a few hovering candles was easily dismissed.

Anna thought she dreamed them. Kristoff, who had been slightly more awake and who realized what night of the year it was, just chalked it up to trolls and magic and the veil; a more or less natural reaction from a man who'd grown up with the supernatural, and he did not mention it to his wife.

They both checked the candlesticks though, when the other was out of the room.

Lise was a happy baby. She had properly round cheeks and strawberry curls, big brown eyes like her father and a pert nose like her mother. Anna would wrap her in finely knit blankets and tie ribbons to her shoes, and Kristoff would get the blankets and the ribbons dirty by hauling Lise with him wherever he went, swaddled next to his chest with thick woven bands of fabric, dyed bright red and azure blues like the ocean and the summer sky.

Elsa bought her excessive amounts of toys – most of which sat patiently in the nursery, waiting for the day when Lise would be old enough to use them – and cooed appropriately whenever she made a cute noise, and played peek-a-boo and Here Comes Thumpkin as if she had been born for the express purpose of making the princess laugh.

Life was rather idyllic.

The next time they noticed something odd, it was rather more dramatic than a few hovering candles; at Lise's 2nd birthday party, she extinguished the candles on her cake by clapping her hands (and there were far more than two; Anna had grown sentimental – "Kristoff, she's our _baby_" – and insisted that 24 be used instead, so as to ignore the fact that Lise's age could now be counted in years rather than months).

At first the adults were confused, and looked for a draft, but Lise had laughed her baby laugh, clapped chubby hands together again and the candles sprang back to life, flames dancing merrily and melting the carefully drawn icing inscription.

All eyes turned to Elsa, who simply shrugged, dumbfounded, and took a deep draught from her goblet of wine.

They visited the trolls next, on a night when the moon was full and the summer air clung to their clothes and the insides of their lungs.

Grand Pabbie – old, mossy and steady as the earth itself – unwound the squirming toddler from around Kristoff's back, and stilled her with a look. She was getting tall now, having hit a growth spurt shortly after her birthday and sprouted – to Anna's combined delight and dismay – a set of legs that in 15 years would make men weep, and in the present made it impossible for her mother to carry her against her breast for more than short stretches at a time.

Above them, the moon shone and filled every crevasse in the valley; in the few dark spaces, bright eyes glittered and watched.

"Your daughter is certainly special," the old troll said after some time, carefully extracting his finger from Lise's grip. "But this is unlike any magic I have seen – it is not of the earth, nor the moon." He lifted black eyes heavily. Lise, no longer in thrall, giggled to herself while Anna hoisted her onto her back.

Kristoff caught her eyes and they grasped hands and squeezed, a gesture to say "I love you," and "we'll get through this," as well as "god help us and this child," who was already snoring into Anna's neck.

"Just – come back if she, uh, changes," Pabbie called after them as they began the hike out of the valley, and around them a chorus of unseen creatures tittered and whispered.

"Wait, _what?_" Anna and Kristoff said together.

* * *

So life was still idyllic, if somewhat more unpredictable.

By the time Lise was five, Anna and Kristoff had learned that her dinners should be served in a bowl (regardless of what was on the menu) because whenever the little girl got tired, random items began to levitate.

(Soup was only served for lunch, after she'd had her nap, or during late dinner parties when she was already in bed.)

Anna flat out refused to take their meals privately, and the staff quickly grew accustomed to the dessert courses hovering several inches off the table. Visiting dignitaries politely said nothing at all.

Arendelle already had something of a reputation – unmannered china typically fell low on their list of incredible tales, especially when the Queen liked to demonstrate her own abilities by building ice sculptures in the courtyard (a pastime that Elsa would simultaneously agree was her favorite way to introduce new political visitors to the kingdom and also deny was a practice in intimidation – not that anyone suggested such a thing, particularly when Arendellian ice was so highly prized).

Flatware that reacted to the whims of the princess went largely unnoticed.

Within the castle walls themselves, odd went from occasionally alarming, to somewhat unusual, to mostly routine.

Anna, round and plump and heavy with another baby, curled up with Lise in her nursery-come-bedroom and read her stories from books while the illustrations came to life and moved across the pages. Kristoff sat cross legged with her on the library floor, drawing on scraps of paper while the paint on the walls changed color whenever she reached for a new pastel. Sometimes the forks danced across the table at dinner.

Kristoff hauled ice. Anna met with ambassadors and dignitaries and complained about swollen feet. Elsa ran the country. Routine.

Lise's golden curls darkened in a coppery red like her mothers, and legs grew longer like her father's, and she slept in her big girl room (the bassinette and cot having been requisitioned for her impending sibling) surrounded by hand-stitched quilts and stuffed animals and wooden toys that her aunt would not stop purchasing (Elsa had a weakness for anything that could possibly be labeled as 'cute').

The adults watched Anna's expanding waist with varying levels of curiosity.

"Do you think he'll be special?" Anna asked one night. She and Kristoff lay wrapped and tangled in their own bed, having kissed Lise on the forehead (twice, always twice each) and Kristoff had sang her a lullaby and gotten her a glass of water and read her a story - "one more, papa, please just one more" – before finally escaping.

She pulled the heavy quilt off her belly, and smoothed her nightgown over the swell. She hadn't been able to see her toes for weeks now, which she missed. Kristoff rolled over, and put one of his large hands over hers.

"Of course she'll be," he said. "She's yours, after all." Anna swatted at him and he laughed, easily dodging her.

"You know what I mean."

"Who knows?" Kristoff's voice was thoughtful in the dark, but Anna could hear him smiling. "Maybe you ate too much chocolate last time."

"_Kristoff_ – "

(Peter is born a few weeks later, fat and fair. The candlesticks in his room stay where they're put.)

* * *

Shortly after Lise turned eight, Kristoff walked in to her bedroom to find that all of the stuffed animals – and there were many, courtesy of the Queen – had come to life.

"Lise, darling," he said carefully, as a patchwork bear batted at his ankles, "is there anything you want to tell your papa?"

"I got lonely," Lisa replied. She was sitting at the foot of her bed, dangling string in front of what had been a stuffed tiger. "Look – Hobbes likes to play!"

"Hobbes…likes to play?" Kristoff said weakly, absentmindedly stroking the quilted ruff of the bear. "Did you ask him to, um, visit?"

"No, papa! Don't be silly." Lisa smiled widely, revealing several missing teeth. "I just went to sleep wishing for friends, and when I woke up, I had them!"

"Wouldn't you rather play with Peter?"

"Peter is too little." Lisa replied, and kissed the stuffed tiger on the nose. "I want friends who can play."

Despite their best efforts to the contrary, Anna and Kristoff's children did lead the life of royals; vaguely aloof simply by virtue of private lessons and a life interspersed with travel to foreign nations and language tutoring and a man in a wig who visited on Fridays and taught them how to dance.

After the stuffed animals incident, Lise was promptly enrolled in a nearby primary school.

"Do you think she's going to be alright?" Anna fretted, bouncing Peter on her hip and watching her daughter trot off to class, hand in hand with one of the royal guardsmen.

"Of course she is," Kristoff said, and leaned in to kiss his wife on the cheek. "She'll make friends. She'll be happy."

(Lise returned from school with torn hose and a brilliant grin, and before long, the castle is regularly overrun with school aged girls. They take turns riding Sven in the courtyard.)

One spring morning Anna went to wake her daughter only to find her hair jet black and straight as a pin, and about a foot longer than it had been when she'd fallen asleep.

There were tears of the "I can't see my friends like this" variety, loud ones that fell harshly on Lise's cheeks and spilled out onto her pinafore, and caused the tub in the adjacent bathroom to fill with water and overflow, creating a soggy mess of towels and toiletries.

"I'm starting to get worried," Anna told Kristoff later that day. "Whatever _it_ is, it's just getting more…dramatic."

They were in the garden, sitting in a patch of late afternoon sun and watching Peter shovel dirt into his mouth. Kristoff pulled out his handkerchief and began trying wipe down his son's face.

"Did I tell you her rocking horse was walking around her room yesterday? Peter – _hold still_ – " Kristoff pinned the squirming toddler to his side and turned to face Anna directly.

"You didn't," she said weakly, and he nodded, wiping a stream of drool off his sleeve.

"Well it was. She did. Whatever. It had the little reigns and everything – I mean, it was actually pretty cool."

"But…"

"Yeah. I know."

They sat without talking until Lise came home, skipping, dark braids swinging behind her, blissful in childhood and totally unaware that flowers were sprouting up in her footsteps.

* * *

Lise was born on a late July afternoon when the air was so sticky and hot that Elsa blew panes of ice all around the room while Anna was in labor, cooling the pillows with a touch and whisper.

For eleven years, the princess with the brassy curling hair smiled and laughed and played with her toys, made faces at her Aunt whenever she thought she could get away with it, drove her parents up the wall, doted on Peter and was genuinely adored, and loved, and worried over.

Magic followed the princess like a shadow, sometimes quietly and unassuming, other times dramatic and loud, but ever present and without explanation.

Anna had been convinced for years that it was something to do with Elsa (she had been rather excited at the prospect actually – "She's next in line, after me! Imagine it: two Snow Queens, Elsa, two!") but in ten years Lise never so much as conjured a snowflake.

Things just…happened. Eventually the toys turned back to toys. The rocking horse climbed back on its mount and stilled into wood. The dinnerware eventually stopped floating whenever she was tired, but Lise still regularly came down to breakfast with a completely different hair color than the night before, and the pictures in her books still moved around when she read them (to Peter now, old enough to be entranced by stories and to follow his older sister around like a duckling).

Kristoff hauled ice. Anna met with ambassadors and dignitaries and tried to learn how to cook. Elsa ran the country. Idyllic.

On the morning of Lise's eleventh birthday, the royal family was eating breakfast (quietly, Kristoff being the only natural morning person of the bunch), buttering rolls and spreading jam on toast. Anna sipped coffee. Elsa read the newspaper.

Just as one of the kitchen girls emerged with a pan of fresh sausages, shrieks erupted from the adjacent hall, followed by a mad sort of fluttering that turned out to be the slightly frantic flapping of wings. Kristoff was on his feet already and Anna close behind him when an owl sailed through the open dining room door – a Great Grey, with an expression of haughty dislike on its face.

"What the – " Kristoff started, staring.

Peter clapped his hands and squealed. Lise sat at her chair, stock still, watching the owl make one great loop above their heads before dropping a thick parchment envelope in her lap, and taking off again, leaving far quieter than it had arrived.

Someone had scrawled along the front in emerald green ink:

_Princess Lise of Arendelle_

_The Royal Dining Room_

_Left of the Potatoes_

"It's addressed to me."


End file.
